Before revealing the data, consider your guess. What colour dominates roads in your area? The answer might seem obvious from daily observation, yet global statistics compiled by automotive paint suppliers and industry analysts often contradict individual perception shaped by local market quirks or memorable standout vehicles.
The Rankings: Tenth to First
Automotive colour popularity data for 2025 comes primarily from paint manufacturers including PPG Industries and Axalta Coating Systems, which supply finishes to manufacturers globally and track production volumes by shade. Their annual reports, released in January 2026, provide the most comprehensive view of global preferences.
10. Orange/Yellow
Vibrant colours occupy the bottom rankings, with orange and yellow combined representing less than 1 percent of global production. These shades appeal to buyers seeking attention and individuality but remain niche choices. Sports cars and performance variants offer orange and yellow options more frequently than mainstream models, though even in these segments, uptake proves limited. Lamborghini and McLaren customers show greater willingness to specify bright colours, but these manufacturers represent tiny production volumes globally.
9. Purple/Violet
Purple shades including violet and lavender register marginally higher than orange, achieving approximately 1 percent of global sales. Some manufacturers have attempted to popularize purple through limited editions and marketing campaigns, with mixed results. The colour's rarity means purple vehicles stand out dramatically but potentially suffer resale value penalties as subsequent buyers prove harder to find.
8. Brown/Beige
Earth tones declined from modest popularity in the 1970s and 1980s to current near-irrelevance, representing roughly 2 percent of production. Luxury manufacturers including Bentley and Range Rover offer sophisticated brown and bronze metallics that appeal to customers seeking understated elegance, but mainstream brands rarely stock brown vehicles, relegating the colour to special orders that few customers request.
7. Green
Green experienced modest resurgence in 2025, climbing to approximately 3 percent of global production from under 2 percent in previous years. Manufacturers launched various green shades marketed as environmentally conscious choices, though no evidence suggests paint colour affects actual environmental impact. British Racing Green and similar heritage shades maintain appeal among enthusiasts, while lighter sage and olive greens attracted younger buyers seeking alternatives to grayscale dominance.
6. Gold/Copper
Metallic gold, copper, and bronze finishes represented roughly 4 percent of 2025 production, popular particularly in Middle Eastern markets where luxury vehicles in distinctive metallic shades signal wealth and status. Chinese buyers also showed stronger preference for gold tones compared to Western markets. These colours rarely appear on mainstream vehicles in Europe or North America, concentrating instead on luxury and premium segments.
5. Red
Red's popularity varies dramatically by region and vehicle type. Globally, red accounted for approximately 9 percent of 2025 production. Sports cars and performance vehicles skew heavily toward red, with Ferrari's signature Rosso Corsa and similar shades representing substantial portions of supercar production. However, red proves less popular on SUVs and family vehicles, where buyers gravitate toward more conservative choices. Red paint also typically carries premium pricing and shows colour fade over time more noticeably than other shades, potentially discouraging some buyers despite its visual appeal.
4. Blue
Blue climbed to approximately 11 percent of global production in 2025, benefiting from manufacturers offering wider ranges from navy to bright electric blue. The colour appeals across vehicle segments, working equally on compact cars, SUVs, and trucks. Blue avoids the severity sometimes associated with black while providing more visual interest than grey or silver. Regional preferences vary, with blue proving particularly popular in Mediterranean countries where lighter shades complement local aesthetics.
3. Silver
Silver's dominance has waned from peaks in the 2000s and early 2010s when it represented over 25 percent of global production, but it remains the third most popular choice at approximately 18 percent in 2025. Silver offers practical advantages including heat reflection in hot climates, relative ease of paint matching for repairs, and ability to hide minor scratches and dirt compared to darker colours. Fleet buyers favour silver for these pragmatic reasons, supporting its continued popularity despite declining consumer enthusiasm for the colour's ubiquity.
2. Grey
Grey, including shades described as graphite, titanium, and various metallics, captured approximately 24 percent of global production in 2025, maintaining second place for the fifth consecutive year. The colour's popularity reflects modern design aesthetics favouring minimalist sophistication over bold statements. Grey complements contemporary vehicle styling with sharp body lines and complex surfacing more effectively than colours that might clash with design details. The shade also offers practical benefits similar to silver while feeling more modern and premium to many buyers.
1. White
White dominated global automotive colour preferences in 2025 for the fifteenth consecutive year, representing approximately 29 percent of all vehicles produced. The colour's supremacy spans regions, vehicle types, and price segments with remarkable consistency. White's popularity stems from multiple factors: heat reflection valuable in warm climates, clean aesthetic appeal, strong resale values due to broad buyer acceptance, and lower cost compared to premium metallic finishes.
Asian markets show particularly strong white preference, with some countries seeing white exceed 40 percent of sales. The colour's association with modernity and technology appeals to buyers of electric vehicles, where white represents the most common choice by substantial margins. Pearl and metallic white variants offer premium alternatives to solid white at modest upcharges, allowing manufacturers to satisfy white preference while capturing additional revenue.
Regional Variations and Trends
While white leads globally, significant regional differences exist. European buyers show stronger preferences for grey and blue compared to global averages, with white representing closer to 22 percent of sales. North American buyers favour white, black, and grey nearly equally, with each colour capturing 20 to 25 percent of market share. Chinese buyers demonstrate the strongest white preference at over 35 percent, with silver also performing well in that market.
Vehicle type influences colour choice substantially. Pickup trucks in North America skew heavily toward white, black, and grey, with these three colours representing over 75 percent of sales. Sports cars show greater colour diversity with red, blue, and yellow capturing higher shares. Luxury vehicles trend toward black, white, and sophisticated grey tones, while mainstream family vehicles concentrate overwhelmingly in white, grey, silver, and black.
The Dominance of Neutrals
Combining white, grey, silver, and black reveals that approximately 82 percent of vehicles produced globally in 2025 featured neutral colours. This overwhelming preference for monochromes reflects both practical considerations and aesthetic trends favouring minimalism. Critics argue this creates automotive landscapes lacking visual interest, with car parks and roads dominated by identical-seeming grey, white, and black vehicles.
Manufacturers attempt to combat neutral dominance by offering distinctive colours in marketing materials and press vehicles, creating perception of colour variety that production volumes don't support. Limited edition shades and heritage colours appear in promotional content far more frequently than their actual sales justify, creating disconnect between marketed brand personality and delivered reality.
The colour preferences also carry environmental implications. Lighter colours including white reduce cooling demands in warm climates by reflecting solar radiation, potentially improving fuel economy and reducing emissions marginally. However, colour production and application processes vary in environmental impact, with some pigments requiring more energy or toxic materials than others. The complexity makes definitive environmental colour rankings difficult beyond general observations that lighter shades offer modest thermal advantages.
Looking Forward
Whether white maintains its fifteen-year reign into 2026 and beyond remains uncertain. Some analysts detect early signs of colour preference diversification, with younger buyers showing greater willingness to specify non-neutral shades than previous generations. Electric vehicle adoption might accelerate this trend if manufacturers position EVs as technologically progressive products deserving distinctive colours rather than conservative choices.
However, strong commercial incentives support neutral colour dominance. Manufacturers can reduce costs and improve production efficiency by concentrating on fewer colours, reducing paint shop complexity and inventory requirements. Dealers prefer stocking neutral vehicles knowing resale risks are minimized. Fleet buyers overwhelmingly choose neutrals for utilitarian and resale reasons. These structural factors suggest white, grey, silver, and black will continue dominating regardless of consumer interest in alternatives.
The 2025 colour rankings reveal global automotive aesthetics increasingly converging around minimalist, technology-influenced preferences favouring simplicity over expression. White's overwhelming lead, grey's strong second place, and neutral colours collectively representing over four-fifths of production paint a picture of conservative choices driving industry consensus. Whether this represents genuine consumer preference or manufacturer-dealer influence channeling buyers toward commercially convenient options remains debatable. What's certain is that guessing white, grey, or silver placed you firmly in the majority, aligned with global trends that show little sign of dramatic reversal despite occasional declarations that colour is returning to automotive design.